Humbling ourselves with all the saints before the throne of the Lamb, let us pray to the Lord, saying,
Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, through your saints you have given us models of the kinds of human beings you want us to be. Teach us, your Church, to follow in their footsteps, imitating the Lamb in whose image we are made. Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, who numbers as his children every one of the seven billion of us now alive, be with our leaders that they may govern us in righteousness, protecting the meek and working always for peace. Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, whom angels serve and the heavens proclaim, make us mindful of the ways in which our desires and actions affect your world. Bless those among us who are working to change our habits of work and play so that our children’s children will have a healthy and happy place to live. Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, who ensures that none who seek him lack for good, be with our congregation in this time of transition, that we may be thankful for the blessings that we have received from those who have sojourned with us and welcome with open arms all those who come to us in service and in need. Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, who wipes away all our tears and saves us from our troubles, comfort all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit, those looking for work to support themselves and their families, and those living in either spiritual or physical fear. We pray especially for… Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

God, whom we have tasted and found good, bless all those who celebrate birthdays and anniversaries this week, that they may look upon you radiant with your joy. We pray especially for… Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

Heavenly Lamb, before whom the multitudes of saints stand robed in white, welcome the souls of those who have died to join in your eternal celebration. We pray especially for… Lord, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.

You are invited to offer your own prayers and thanksgivings, ending each with “Lord, in your mercy.”

God, whose image we see manifest in the virtues and lives of your most holy saints, grant that we may be emboldened to realize their virtues in ourselves and so to work for the coming of your kingdom in this world and the next. Through the one who taught us to recognize us all as your children, Amen.

I am finding it difficult to stay cheerful of late. I could blame the hot flashes, which have been wearing me down for the past several months, but it isn’t just the hot flashes.

It is the whole wretched culture war that—human nature being what it is—we are never going to win.

It is the relentless pressure in academia to conform to the prevailing narrative of victimization and oppression that would cast one group as demons (white males, especially Christians) and the other as innocent (everyone else).

It is the unwillingness on the part of establishment conservatives to credit what Milo has shown are the stakes in our fight against the death of our Western ideals.

It is the feeling of being muffled and silenced for speaking out against the mischaracterization of my own field of medieval studies as riven with white supremacism and neglect of the Other.

It is the disappointment in not being able to do more to make a difference in the way in which the argument goes.

I know from the Facebook groups I belong to that many of his followers take Jordan as a kind of spiritual advisor, some would say guru. They spend thread after thread discussing how to live out his sayings.

Which would be fine.

If not for the fact that some of his sayings go directly contrary to the tradition in which he purports to be speaking.

I know, I fell for it, too. In Jordan’s powerful words:
Don’t underestimate the power of your speech! Now, Western culture is phallogocentric. Let’s say it... It is predicated on the idea of the Logos. The Logos is the sacred element of Western culture. What do…

The tenor is smug self-righteousness, the absolute certainty of being on the Right Side of History. Even some liberals are starting to find it a bit hard to take, the way in which their family and friends talk about Those People. The Deplorables. The Racists. The Misogynists. The Xenophobes. The People With the Wrong Opinions about Immigration, the Relation Between the Sexes, the Welfare State, and Islam. You know. The ones who read Breitbart, vote for Donald Trump, and listen to Milo.

It can get a bit wearing, even at a distance. It takes real stamina to be able to meet it head on, as Milo has done this past semester over the course of his Dangerous Faggot Tour. Quite frankly, I don't know how he does it. I get weary just watchingthe protests. The name-calling. The unwillingness to listen to what he actually says. On the other hand, the tactics rarely change, which makes them possible to list. And if we can list them, we can prepare for them. These are the weapons that our oppone…

Feminism is cancer because it is built on a lie. Actually, it is built on a whole pyramid of lies, but there is one gigantic one at its base.

Here it is in its most diabolical form. The author is Ludwig Feuerbach, his translator the novelist George Eliot, the work his Essence of Christianity, published in English in 1854:
But here it is also essential to observe, and this phenomenon is an extremely remarkable one, characterising the very core of religion, that in proportion as the divine subject is in reality human, the greater is the apparent difference between God and man; that is, the more, by reflection on religion, by theology, is the identity of the divine and human denied, and the human, considered as such, is depreciated.... To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing....
The monks made a vow of chastity to God; they mortified the sexual passion in themselves, but therefore they had in heaven, in the Virgin Mary, the image of woman—an image of…

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“You grasp my soul, and topple my enemies with it. And what is our soul? A splendid weapon it may be, long, sharp, oiled, and coruscating with the light of wisdom as it is brandished. But what is this soul of ours worth, what is it capable of, unless God holds it and fights with it? Any sword, however beautifully made, lies idle if there is no warrior to take it up.... So God does whatever he wishes with our soul. Since it is in his hand, it is his to use as he will." -- Augustine of Hippo, Exposition of Psalm 34 (35),trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B.

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“The best way to pray is: stop. Let prayer pray within you whether you know it or not. This means a deep awareness of your true inner identity.... By grace we are Christ. Our relationship with God is that of Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit." -- Father Louis, alias Thomas Merton